Adrian Tymes wrote:

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Parting a Cloudy Future

Written by Adrian Tymes

[Legal disclaimer:

This story is based on characters created by Hiroki Hayashi, Masaki
Kajishima, AIC, and Pioneer.  Permission is granted to freely distribute
this story, so long as:
a: no recompense of financial value is received or given by the person
who distributes the story, and
b: the distributed copy is identical to the story as originally
authored.
In other words, don't sell it, and don't alter it.

Copyright (c) 2001, all rights reserved, et cetera.]

******

She gestured to each element as she listed it.  "The trees, the sky,
the sounds...I always forget how much I miss Earth until I return."
Her hair ruffled in a slight breeze as she sighed.  "I think I forget on
purpose, so I won't miss it so much it interferes with my duties."

  ruffled -- rustled (?) I'm not _quite_ sure that 'ruffled' works the way you want it to.

"Yep!"  Mihoshi smiled, enjoying the irony.  "The Emperor of Jurai
*officially* asked us to visit his daughter.  We're *officially*
unofficially on leave."

  Kiyone... Tenchi Universe?

While the day was only partly cloudy for the Galaxy Police officers,
Ryoko was already in the shadow of a dark downpour.  Despite the fact
that it was noon, little enough sunlight broke through the clouds that
the street lights' photo sensors had tripped, turning them on and
illuminating cones of water droplets just as they finished their
kamikaze plunges to the streets and sidewalks.  It was a metaphor Ryoko
found entirely too appropriate to the scene at hand.  For not the first
time since Tenchi had given her a new appreciation for life, she felt as
though she were defiling her soul, the stain too far inside her for any
amount of mere rain to ever wash off.

  Eh? Angsting in the rain? And it's not Ranma?

  Mind... struggling... ;)

But the money...yes, the money was there, and it spent as well as any
money.  Better, even, than bills or goods she stole, for those could be
tracked, so some forms of spending were closed off.  This money was as
close to honest as she got, and she would need it if she was to be
truly worthy of a future Emperor's affection.  Sooner or later, she knew
Ayeka would resort to trying to buy Tenchi's love...and while she
doubted that tactic would succeed, it would be less likely to if she
were not a total pauper.

  Well, there's always piracy, of course.

  One would think it was profitable, to some degree...

Still, as she left a plastic bag with the merchandise on top of a
garbage can in an alley and backed away, she wondered just how many
non-Earthlings there were on this planet.  She had thought that, once
the Galaxy Police duo left, all the remaining ones had been living at
Tenchi's house.  But here was definitely not there.  She was pretty sure
that someone who knew to ask for this merchandise by name, and who could
pay - and pay quite well - in Jurai scrip, was definitely not native to
this planet.

  I'm not quite sure that 'ones' works in that line. It scans awkwardly, but I can't quite pinpoint why...

Her customer trudged forward in the shadows.  A camo cloak foiled her
sight, even infrared and ultraviolet, to only a slightly lesser degree
than the alley's shadows provided concealment for both her and her
client from any natives wandering by.  All Ryoko had ever seen was a
gloved hand, and written communication.  Ryoko suspected that what she
faced was actually a drone robot, controlled by the customer from some
distance away; certainly, the figure seemed to be much smaller than a
normal person.  Perhaps, in the light, it could even pass for an
innocent child, which no one would suspect of carrying poison.

  The first sentence is quite convoluted... I have trouble parsing it.

She would not be here forever, yet she knew of no one else who would
deliver this type of cargo this far away from mainstream interstellar
civilization.  She wondered what the customer would do when that day
came...but that was her customer's problem, not hers.  And perhaps the
customer had solved it: the doses she delivered only lasted a few
months, yet it had been almost a year since her last delivery.  Nodding
in satisfaction as the familiar hand took the bag, tearing it slightly
as the bag hooked on the can's lid for a moment, and replaced it with a
bundle of fresh Juraian bank notes, she took the money and flew away.

  Is that last sentence a run-on? I'm not a good judge of that. :p

A clap of thunder muted the door's hinges as Tenchi opened the door.
"Oh, hi!  Come on in."

  He doesn't seem very surprised.

Tenchi tried to predict what Mihoshi was thinking, only to remind
himself that such was usually a wasted effort.  "What?"

  I thought this scene was from Kiyone's PoV?

"Well..."  Mihoshi pulled her fist down and rested her chin on it.
"Technically, but they helped her pay for it, so there was some
question.  But there's more: a couple days ago, we helped take down a
despot on Sylat 4.  Our spaceship was the largest Galaxy Police ship
present, so his personal fortune was loaded onto the Yagami to take back
to base as evidence.  We'd just gotten back and resupplied when we were
told to report here immediately, so it's still in our cargo bay.  And
that's in addition to all the weapons and equipment we were
issued...though I'm not sure if we want to sell those.  In fact, I think
some of our friends knew what was about to happen, so they stashed some
artifacts on our ship to make sure they never fell into the wrong
hands."

  This is Tenchi Universe Mihoshi? I might see this from OAV Mihoshi, but this seems remarkably insightful for TU Mihoshi's norm.

"Yeah.  Like...do you remember the prison dimension where we put Kain?"

  Must watch that movie.

"No more than usual.  For instance..."  She pulled out her cube.  "The
complete blueprints for these things.  I think we're expected to sell
them to the highest bidder, so they'll be made for everyone rather than
the designs just being lost."

"Oh."  He made no effort to hide his relief, though he did not expect
anyone to notice.  "So, what happens next?"

  I don't seem to remember a good reason why Tenchi would actually care about that very much...

"Ahem.  As the First Princess of Jurai, on a world claimed by the
Juraian Empire, and with the legal powers conferred by Galaxy Police
membership no longer in effect, you are technically on this planet by my
leave only.  My word is law.  And I have been ordered by the Emperor
himself to keep an eye on you both until either you leave this planet
or, preferably, accept our offer of citizenship.  Besides, the storm
isn't predicted to let up until morning anyway."  She smiled at Tenchi.
"I hope you don't mind that I insist they stay here."

Tenchi shrugged.  "No, not at all.  We've got plenty of room."

  Which leads me to think that since Noboyuki designed the house, he MEANT Tenchi to somehow develop these women troubles.

  Meddling old man...

"Then if you'll excuse me..."  Kiyone drained her cup, bowed, and stood
up.  "I remember a few places in her lab where even she rarely goes.  I
think I need to be alone right now."  She edged past Mihoshi, then
headed for the closet.  "By the way, that was very good tea.  Thanks."

  Is 'thanks' too casual for Kiyone? Come to think of it, she's just had a very casual attitude in general through this fic.

  Well, she is kinda on vacation, I guess. As long as no one breaks out the karaoke machine...

The princess froze in mid-drink, part of her mind desperately trying not
to spit the liquid in her mouth all over.

  Hmm.

"Fair warning: I put in some neural manipulation fields to help me keep
my mind focused on my work.  They'll probably trigger for you too.  So
don't think you're going strange if you cycle through what you're going
to feel faster than you think you should."

"If...when...you need someone to talk to, I've been there, and I'll be
here.  But for now, the door on your left.  And if it helps, I'm sorry
anyone has to go through what you're going through."

  This rings more of OAV Washuu than TU Washuu, I think... but I like OAV Washuu better anyway. :p

  'cept for the Washuu-bots. Gotta love the Washuu-bots.

  As a side note... why is Kiyone so broken up over this? If the GP are corrupt as Ayeka's report says they are, wouldn't she prefer a peace-enforcing role somewhere more respectable anyway?

The faintest flicker of a smiled briefly graced the corner of Kiyone's
lips, as she trudged off towards the indicated portal.  Through it, she
found an empty field, grass covering gently rolling foothills as far as
the eye could see.  Idly, she realized this must be one of the planets
in Washu's pocket dimension: far above, a bright spot among white,
fluffy clouds indicated the local sun's position.  The air was utterly
still, and the temperature perfectly balanced between warm and cool.

  smiled -- smile

What Kiyone did not see was the pollen in the air, tuned specifically to
her biology to tempt her towards a nap.  From a one-way observation
portal, Washu watched her part experiment, part mercy mission unfold as
Kiyone laid down and let slumber overtake her.  Only once the subject's
brainwaves confirmed sleep did Washu allow the dream altering machine
hovering nearby to uncloak and settle into place.  It was not just for
the sake of science that Washu had brushed off her prototype
psychological shock reducer.  The focused expression of what some might
call pious hope, were it on a face other than Washu's, showed that it
was not merely to get her name associated with another radical invention
that she now tweaked and twisted the images in Kiyone's mind, trying to
give her some inner peace.

  part experiment -- part-experiment (?)

  part mercy mission -- part-mercy-mission (?)

To Tenchi, people like Azusa and his grandfather were always calm,
unflappable types.  Even in the most dire of crises - especially then,
in fact - they were the centers of calm and peace, their hearts as solid
as rocks.  They only ever allowed themselves to show positive emotion,
such as humor or joy, and as far as he knew those were the only emotions
they allowed themselves to feel.

  Suggest: his grandfather and Azusa (otherwise looks like Azusa's grandfather.)

"I can not talk you out of it, can I?"

  Since it's a touch I use for formality in my own characters quite often, I like the lack of contractions. Nice detail.

"I'll accept," Mihoshi interrupted.  "But only if Kiyone does too.
Where she goes, I go.  I mean, I'm sure you have your own security
forces, and you'd have a position for us, maybe even taking care of
things out here just like we used to do."

  Hmm... Mihoshi as a PI. There's a thought.

"Umm, excuse me?"  Tenchi waved his hand.  "I'd rather not get married
to anyone just now, if you don't mind.  I'm still trying to get through
high school."

  Ayeka: That's nice, Tenchi. However, as I was saying, Father...

Tenchi shook his head.  "What he said was GAAH!"

  Suggest a dash before the 'Gaah'.

Ayeka chuckled politely as Mihoshi launched herself across the table to
tackle-snuggle the object of her affection.

  Ayeka's awfully accepting of the idea.

"Tenchi!"  Ryoko smiled and hugged him, phasing him through Mihoshi's
grip, leaving the ex-detective to fall through where he had just been
and land on the ground nose first.  "I got all cold on the trip home.
What do you say we snuggle and warm up, hmm?"

  I thought she couldn't phase through living things?

Feminine squeaks and groans issued through the front door as Sasami
walked up, plastic grocery bags stacked almost taller than she was in
her arms, with the last dregs of the storm's initial punch streaming off
the roof next to her like an artificial waterfall.  She quickly ran
through the odds, finally settling on what seemed the most likely: Ryoko
caught Ayeka and Tenchi in a compromising position, and negotiated that
into letting her claim Tenchi's virginity - possibly with Ayeka watching
or even shamed into assisting.  Nodding to herself on her stakeless
internal bet, she opened the door, readying a few choice comments
depending on the angle presented to her.

  Hmm...

Which was why, after opening the door, glancing around, and seeing that
her sister was in motion, she said, "Ayeka, could I ask you to keep it
down while I make dinner?  I know you love Mihoshi and all, but..."

  Heh.

She choked, realizing her mistake just after the nick of time.

Ryoko lazily lifted her head from Tenchi's chest, where the pair lay in
front of the fire in the fireplace.  Then she looked at Ayeka and
Mihoshi, the latter of whom was clearly blissed out from the former's
ministrations.  "Ohoho, it's like *that*, is it?"

  Suggest: drop the 'in the fireplace'.

"Sure, sure, make all the excuses you want."  Ryoko lay back down on
Tenchi, her fingers tracing intricate patterns on his chest.  "We know
the truth now, and fighting isn't going to change anything."  She
smiled, then tilted her head to look into his eyes.  "Isn't that right,
Tenchi?"

  I'm wondering why Ayeka's letting Ryouko get as far as she is.

Sasami sat on the house's porch, studying the moonless night sky's
non-reflection off the pitch black lake.  The storm clouds still loomed
overhead, barely visible in ghostly reflections from the house's lights,
blocking what was usually most stargazers' ideal observation conditions.

  pitch black -- pitch-black (?)

Sure enough, with a blast of wind, a hyperspace portal appeared just
above the lake's surface, disgorging a sleek shuttle that Tenchi swore
he had seen in some science fiction movie two weeks ago.  The shuttle
gracefully but quickly hovered to dry land and set down...upside down.
A hatch on its side irised opened after a few minutes, out of which
tumbled Misaki, landing on her feet.

  That bit deserves more exposition, I think.

"No, really, mommy, it's-"

Sasami barely felt Mihoshi quickly pick her pocket, pulling out a
slightly ripped plastic bag with some white pills.

Misaki peered at the bag closely.  "Stims?"

  Geribaldi: Doc, I think you got a problem.

  Benjamin: Wrong series!

Which had her concerned.  Mihoshi seemed to be extremely upset at Misaki
for some reason, and growing more so by the minute.  Currently, only
Kiyone had even touched her tea; two cups sat where she had set them in
front of Misaki and Mihoshi.

"Please hand over the stims," Mihoshi growled.

  Mihoshi? Forcefull? Er... is this based of Tenchi in Tokyo, maybe?

  I haven't seen that series, so it would explain why I'm having trouble with the characterizations.

Kiyone let herself fall into Mihoshi's lap.

Who blinked, startled.  "Kiyone?"  She draped one arm protectively over
the teal hair that now covered the shoulders.

  the -- her

  And are you sure you want to start that paragraph with 'Who'? It seems a tad jarring...

"Yeah, and we never got much thanks for it, from anyone."  Kiyone pulled
herself back into a sitting position, though still leaning heavily on
Mihoshi.  "Juraian money doesn't spend on Earth, and with your import
ban, we had to get second jobs here just to get food and a place to
live."  She groaned at the memory.  "I never understood why you didn't
just open up relations: let them know we're here, introduce 'em to the
galactic economy and all that."

  'em ?? From Kiyone, to Jurian royalty? I guess she's still a little on edge from the entire revelation thing...

Kiyone instinctively put up her hands in a warding gesture, until
realizing that neither partner was looking at the other.  "Alright,
alright!  I'll at least get a bit of a nap tonight, and I won't act on
it until you're awake, ok?"

"...I suppose."

  Most of that scene went _way_ over my head.

Kiyone popped open the attic window and crawled out onto the roof just
in time to almost collide with Tenchi.

  Ranma: Geez, you show up on a roof in a few frames, and suddenly it's a trend...

"So...Sasami told her?"

  Told her what?

Once Kiyone climbed up to the peak of the roof, onto which Ryoko had
added a board so two people could lay comfortably head to head, Ryoko
whispered, "Good call and thank you.  Telling him would've just given
him nightmares."

  call and thank -- call, and thank (?)

"Then maybe I should tell you what I see?"

"Sure."

"I see a dreamer who needs to find some cause to care about."

"Ouch.  Walked into that one."

"'Ouch'?  Kiyone, I meant that as a compliment.  Ok, so you found out
you've been serving some bad people.  That doesn't make *you* bad, just
naive."

  Ryouko is remarkably insightful and kind, here.

"Because she's going to fixate on either you or Tenchi, and Tenchi is
*mine*."

  Hah!

"Hmph.  Well...in an alternate universe, where a certain dashing young
Galaxy Police officer rescued a pirate and wormed her way into the
pirate's heart before anyone else showed up...maybe it would've been
possible.  But *this* Ryoko is all Tenchi's."

  Is this a reference to another fic?

Ryoko's eyes registered a heat flare from Kiyone's face, bringing her
left cheek in line with the slap-stimulated right cheek.  "Thanks,
Ryoko."

"Sorry."  A break in the clouds allowed a beam of moonlight to
silhouette Ryoko, revealing that she had been studying Kiyone all this
time.  "You're thinking about something."

  Who's PoV is this scene from?

"Within the past hour, what looked like an alien spaceship appeared over
the capitol buildings in Sydney, Capetown, Washington D.C., London,
Berlin, Moscow, New Dehli, Beijing, and Tokyo.  At each location, it
burned a message into the ground nearby with some kind of high-powered
laser, then disappeared.  At Washington and Moscow, guards managed to
fire a few shots before the ship vanished, but by all accounts they
inflicted no visible damage."  The camera angle shifted, showing some
kanji in a taped-off area next to the Diet with police keeping crowds of
onlookers back.  "The message in each city, aside from being in the
local language, was the same: 'Earth is not alone'.

  What camera angle?

  And I thought the Diet was a government body, not a building. But I could be wrong. :p

"Most of the affected governments have yet to issue official statements.
In the US, about twenty minutes after the Washington visit, their Joint
Chiefs of Staff convened a press conference and claimed that the event
did not happen.  Moments later, they were fired by the US President for
being 'dangerously addicted to secrecy beyond any pretense of national
security'.

  Is 'addicted' the right word? 'Obsessed,' maybe?

Kiyone stuck her tongue out.  "Bleah.  And what won't make the news for,
oh, at least a day or two is all those technical files that have popped
up on their 'Internet'.  Hyperspace drives, translators, subspace
communicators, basic galactic history texts...all the usual stuff from
standard uplifters' guides, starting from technology they knew a century
ago.  Oh, and just for good measure, I tossed the GP cube plans in there
as well, though it'll probably take them longer to puzzle those out.  I
packaged the entire set into a large file and encouraged them to mirror
it out; there's probably at least ten copies of it out there by now,
posted as alternates to be available even if and when the originals get
deleted."

  Misaki: Yes, but you uploaded it to a free web-page. Who's going to download the secrets of the universe when they have to deal with pop-ups?

  Kiyone: ... Dang! Knew I missed that one.

Standard Furious Expression #3 changed into that which is best not
named.

  I'm not entirely sure that that running gag works... This mostly comes off as too dramatic for such a joke to work very well -- at least the way it's worded...

  But then, I suck at writing humor, so my input may not be worth that much. :/

But she was already gone, beamed back up to the Yagami.

  The Yagami has a transporter? I thought only Juraian tree-ships had those.

Misaki seethed, breathing through clenched teeth, then faced her
daughters.  "You're right.  Give mommy a hug goodbye, my children."

  Hm... Funaho probably would have just combusted.

"I miss her already.  But I finally got away with calling her 'mother'."

  mother -- Mother (?) Not too sure about this one at all.

Mihoshi giggled.  She was not sure whether she was in love with Kiyone
or not, but she did know she would love nothing more than to spend the
rest of her life with both Tenchi and Kiyone.  And if Kiyone was nervous
enough to pace outside her room for a whole hour mumbling about it, all
she had to do now was cuddle up to Tenchi until he tired of Ryoko's and
Ayeka's constant fighting.

  Wasn't this scene from Kiyone's PoV?

Ryoko smiled.  "You haven't been monitoring the com channels.  *Someone*
leaked word of your little stunt to the media just as they were getting
tired of tearing down the GP.  And it seems someone here's already set
up a tachyon transponder to the galactic nets.  There's already some
heavy message traffic - seems a quiet neutral world without its own
space armada is just what the galaxy needs right now, as a site for
sorting out the details of the new galactic order if nothing else.
Don't be surprised if some of the merchants in the neighboring systems
start accepting Earth currency over the next few months, once the
diplomats start arriving."  She handed over a pouch.  "Just about the
same time, in fact, as this medicine should finish curing Mihoshi's stim
addiction."

  Hey, the Galactic Network uses IP v. 6?

Peals of thunder from another storm in the distance threatened to drown
out Ryoko's words, but the pirate waited for them to quiet down before
replying.  "It's going to be a looong time until your next vacation."

  Intersting story, at least, though the characters felt very unfamiliar to me. I hope this C&C is adequate apology for misspelling your name. :p